A Turbulent History

The other evening a met a small group of British and Dutch tourists at a waterfront bar where I was unwinding from my first day of work and three previous days of travelling. I mentioned that I was an intern at a peacebuilding and conflict transformation NGO on Zanzibar. They gave me a funny look and finally one of them asked me, “Is there a conflict going on here in Zanzibar?” With large numbers of tourists pouring in recently for the Sauti za Busara music festival, the only sign of any conflict seemed to be a spirited haggling over prices for hakuna matata (no worries) t-shirts.

 

While there are certainly no ongoing crises in Zanzibar as there are in many other parts of Africa, and there has been very little direct violence since the bloody 1964 Revolution, there are simmering tensions on the island that have very deep historical roots.

 

Zanzibar, due to its strategic location, has always been a mecca for trade across the Indian Ocean, and because of that, it has always been very diverse and multi-cultural. There was a long history of early traders from all around the Indian Ocean, followed by a short period of Portuguese colonial rule. The modern situation, however, began in 1622 when the Omani dynasties ousted the Portuguese in the battle of Hormuz. This began a long period of Arab and Omani control that has had a lasting effect on the present-day situation.

 

The Slave Market

The Slave Market

The Omani’s were in control of Zanzibar for almost 300 years and became very powerful through profits from the slave trade. The sultan of Oman even moved the seat of his government to the island in 1841 and the notorious and brutal slave market in Stone Town was said to have traded over 1 million lives. The period of Omani rule came to an end in 1890 when Zanzibar became a British protectorate, but the Omanis were still held in positions of power in a form of a British puppet regime.

 

Another large and important minority was the South Asians who had come as merchants from the Portuguese colony of Goa in southern India nearly one hundred years earlier. They, along with the Omanis, were the preferred groups of the colonial powers and were given all of the top positions in government and comprised most of the business leaders and land-owners in Zanzibar. The native African population were left marginalized and impoverished, no longer facing the horrors of the slave trade, but suffering from a great deal of structural violence that kept them in a position of permanent oppression. This led to the need for a change.

 

Beit al-Ajaib, or The House of Wonders, the most prominent of the lavish buildings built by the Sultan of Oman and once the tallest building in East Africa.

Beit al-Ajaib, or The House of Wonders, the most prominent of the lavish buildings built by the Sultan of Oman and once the tallest building in East Africa.

The change came about shortly after independence was granted to the island. On January 12th, 1964, the Zanzibar revolution started and the old Arab leadership was quickly overwhelmed and overthrown. Unfortunately, this led to many days of indiscriminate killings and rapes of Arabs and South Indians around the island, with some people claiming that this was a genocide. Estimates for the death toll have ranged from just a few hundred to 20,000, nearly all Arabs and South Indians.  The Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) came out on top, which is the political party that, in its new form, the Chama Cha Mapundizi (CCM), has led the government since the revolution.

 

However, Zanzibar is a classic case of the oppressors becoming the oppressed. Centuries of slavery and unequal land ownership ended very quickly with a brutal killing of the ethnic group responsible for the oppression and a new political structure was developed that didn’t fully rectify all of the inequalities present in Zanzibari society (something that would have been an impossible task).

 

Fastforward to 2000 when political tensions began developing again around contested elections. The CCM/ASP had won every election since the revolution and hadn’t succeeded in making a just and inclusive society. The main opposition party, the Civic United Front (CUF), emerged from some of the political coalitions of the old Arab government (although no longer based on ethnic lines), with its base of power on the often-neglected northern island of Pemba, began getting a large percentage of the overall vote. They were never able to defeat the CCM, though, and they cried corruption. This resulted in riots surrounding the 2000 and 2005 elections, which left many dead and wounded. The worst violence during this period came with a massacre on January 27th, 2001 that left 35 dead and more than 600 wounded, according to Human Rights Watch. The centuries-old political divides were re-emerging to cause new episodes of violence in the 21st century.

 

To avoid political violence around the 2010 election, the leaders of both parties decided to work together and form the Government of National Unity (GNU). While the two political parties would still exist at the local level, at the national level (I’m using nation here to refer to Zanzibar, although Zanzibar is really only a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania) there are no political parties. Fortunately, the 2010 elections were peaceful, but there is still a great deal of concern surrounding the 2015 elections, which are less than a year away.

 

This is where Search for Common Ground comes in. SFCG is working closely with the GNU to assure that both political parties continue to work together and avoid future violence. They are working with 7 radio stations, 2 on Pemba and 5 on Unguja (the main island, often just referred to as Zanzibar), on programs focusing on good governance to help people understand the workings of the government and allow them to both support and hold the GNU accountable. They are also working directly with government officials and civil society groups to support the idea of an accountable, transparent and just GNU. As an intern (who still understands very little Swahili), I am working mostly behind the scenes on all of these programs.

 

This is the political background leading up to the work that I am currently engaged in, as I understand it, and based on the reading I have done and the conversations I have had. I feel it is a pretty accurate representation, although I absolutely understand that I have broadly oversimplified the situation. The CCM and the CUF are no longer divided clearly on ethnic lines and to say that the current political situation is neatly tied to Arab domination and slavery from two centuries ago, is a misrepresentation. However, history has a way of repeating itself and preserving the structures of conflict and oppression, even if the context may have changed. As I learn and understand more, I will update this blog and my analysis of the conflict may change, however, I believe that the present situation on the island can be looked at in the broader picture of Zanzibar’s turbulent and contested history.

 

Most of the historical facts for this blog entry came from my guidebook, The Rough Guide to Zanzibar, and Don Petterson’s account of the Revolution in Zanzibar. Additionally, my information comes from historical plaques and sites in Stone Town and conversations that I have had since arriving here.